DRAG ME THROUGH HELL

THE MIRROR KNOWS

Chapter Five

The mirror knows

Sometimes I lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what it might feel like to disappear. Not die, Just… vanish, evaporate….not be here anymore. Not in this dusty town where secrets hide beneath ironed Sunday dresses, and smiles are stretched so wide you’d think no one ever screamed.

But they did, I heard it in the silence. In the pauses between prayers.

I was born here. This nowhere town tucked into Arizona like a splinter no one ever bothered to pull out. You didn’t leave places like this. You settled. You rot. Here we wore courtesy as armor and guilt like perfume.

And God, I tried to keep my head down. Tried to be good……invisible…..holy.

But something was waking up. Something inside me, Or maybe around me….. I didn’t even know where the line was anymore.

We didn’t talk about these things here. Not the kind of things that curled under your skin and hummed like power lines. Not the kind of things that lived behind mirrors and ached between your thighs.

Even trips to Grandma’s house were useless. She was worse than Mom. Scripture scrawled on the walls like wallpapers from God, eyes like knives, and that eternal scowl on her tired face. “Don’t be like your mother,” she’d sneer, her voice dried-out and parched. “Don’t carry on the curse.”

The curse…..Like I was born from sin…..like I was sin.

Mom never talked about it, She just armed herself with faith and forgiveness and quoted verses like ammunition. She had me young, barely out of high school….Fell in love…..fell in lust. Fell, period. And now she lived in the glow of redemption, while I lived in her shadow.

It felt like growing up In a holy war. And I was the battlefield.

“I just want to leave,” I whispered, the words barely scratching the air, They floated there, light and trembling, dissolving into the stillness of my room.

But the silence broke.

“Trisha?”

My mother’s voice sliced through my thoughts. I blinked, startled, like someone caught in a dream they didn’t know they were dreaming. Slowly, I turned my head.

“Yes, Mom?”

She took my hands in hers, as she stared directly in my eyes…..she had been sitting beside me on my bed all the while, and there was something unusual in her face….Softer, Sadder. Her eyes were red, rimmed with apology.

“I heard you crying last week,” she said quietly. “I almost came in, but I didn’t know what to say.”

I froze…...

“I’m sorry,” she continued. “I should have believed you when you said you had nothing to do with Lillian’s death, but instead I ignored you, and waited for the police report. That wasn’t right, I should’ve believed you first, I’m your mother.”

I smiled back at her.

Not because I forgave her, not because anything had been fixed, I smiled because I didn’t know what else to do…… because laughter was clawing its way up my throat, and I had to cage it before it spilled out and gave me away.

She had no idea….

She was clueless as usual. Though she understood me because she gave birth to me, dressed me in Sunday bests, made me repeat prayers with trembling lips. she didn’t know me…...not really.

Those weren’t sobs of abandonment…..they were sobs of pleasure and pain, heartache and satisfaction. My sobs weren’t from guilt or grief. They were from my yearnings for release.

This thing…..this energy…

The thing behind my mirror.

It was real, I felt it….it was strong, and it wanted me….and that alone was intoxicating.

“It’s fine, Mom,” I lied, pretending to brush a tear off my cheek. “I’m just glad everything’s okay now.”

She got up, kissed my forehead like i was still twelve. “I’ll be at the church guest house tonight. Night prayers. Bible women are coming. Lock the doors, alright? I love you. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

But I already knew she wouldn’t. Not in the way I needed

And that was okay.

That night, the house was empty. Still, it Hummed like a song I didn’t know the words to.

I moved slowly. Deliberately. Like something sacred was about to begin.

I lit the vanilla candle Mom hated…..the one she said smelled “like Adultery.” To me, it smelled like freedom. Like rebellion. Like the version of me she was terrified of.

I undressed, piece by piece, letting my clothes fall like petals at my feet. I stood naked in front of the mirror.

And there it was.

The crack.

Just a hairline fracture in the glass, but it was strong. And for the past few days, It had devoured me. It was a sliver of darkness that didn’t shift with the room’s light. I stared at it for hours everyday, certain it was just alive……or maybe, a door, a presence.

I pressed my palm against it.

Cold….Not glass-cold, otherworldly cold. Like something was breathing on the other side.

And as expected it responded….

I felt a rush through me….soft, electric, curious. It didn’t speak, It didn’t need to, I felt it.

And it wanted me.

My other hand moved instinctively, it trailed down to where the heat bloomed inside me, It’s not lust, not really, It’s ritual…. Communion…..I heard it whisper to me. I closed my eyes and parted my thighs, fingers slick with anticipation.

The energy coiled up my spine, My mouth fell open, I couldn’t breathe, actually I didn’t want to….. I just wanted more.

“I know you’re there,” I whispered to the crack….my body shaking with anticipated pleasure. “Please… show me.”

A gust of cool air grazed my n*****s.

My fingers pressed harder. Pleasure slammed into me like a wave. I cried out, as my legs shook…..my world spun out of control.

“Please,” I beg you… Show me you’re real!”

My body shook, as my wetness splashed on the mirror, on the floor, between my thighs. It was too much, I was shaking, floating…..connected.

The mirror trembled. A faint glow leaked from the crack, like something was breathing through it.

And then….

SLAM.

The door swung right open.

Mom.

Standing there, Frozen.

Eyes wide.

Mouth parted.

But it was her face that both scared and amused me.

Not horror.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

Like she’d seen this before.

Like she’s done this before.

Not tonight. Not recently.

Years ago.

Maybe in front of this same mirror.